Geneva: Top diplomats meeting on the Ukraine crisis on Thursday agreed that all parties, including separatists and their Russian backers, would stop violent and provocative acts, and that all illegal groups would be disarmed in steps US Secretary of State John Kerry said must begin within days to be taken seriously.

Ukrainians with their national flags gather in support of a united Ukraine in Donetsk. Photo: AP

However pro-Russian separatists occupying public buildings in east Ukraine said they would not agree to leave the sites before other major conditions were met.

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A joint statement made no mention of the presence of what the US has said are 40,000 Russian troops massed on Ukraine’s eastern and southern borders. But Mr Kerry said the statement made clear that Russia is ''absolutely prepared to begin to respond with respect to troops'', provided the terms of the agreement are observed.

He said there had been ''no discussion at this point in time about removal of existing sanctions'' imposed by the US and Europe in response to Russia’s annexation of the Ukrainian region of Crimea, which he said the allies still consider illegal.

US Secretary of State John Kerry and European Union High Representative Catherine Ashton with Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andriy Deshchytsia after the meeting in Geneva. Photo: Reuters

''I made clear to Foreign Minister Lavrov today that if we’re not able to see progress on immediate efforts to implement [the agreement beginning] this weekend … we will have no choice but to impose further costs on Russia.''

In addition to disarmament of ''illegal groups'', the seven-paragraph agreement called for the return of ''all illegally seized buildings ... to legitimate owners'', and said that ''all illegally occupied streets, squares and other public places in Ukrainian cities and towns must be vacated''.

As Ukraine’s interim government has previously offered, the agreement also grants amnesty to protesters, ''with the exception of those found guilty of capital crimes''.

Pro-Russian activists said they planned to maintain their sit-ins. Photo: AFP

Activists in Donetsk said the wording of the agreement meant Ukrainian nationalists still camped out on Kiev's Maidan two months after their protests overthrew Kremlin-backed president Viktor Yanukovych must also clear away their barricades. Other activists said they planned to maintain their sit-ins until they could hold a referendum next month that some believe can emulate Crimea and result in the region being annexed to Russia.

''If it means all squares and public buildings, then I guess it should start with the Maidan in Kiev,'' said Alexander Zakharchenko, leader of a group of martial arts athletes who are among those occupying a local government building in Donetsk. ''We'll see what they do there before we make our decision here.''

Three pro-Russia separatists were reported killed in confrontations with government forces in eastern Ukraine on Thursday, and in a news conference in Moscow, Russian President Vladimir Putin reminded that the Russian parliament had authorised military action in Ukraine.

Referring to a portion of the agreement that ''rejected all expressions of extremism, racism and religious intolerance, including anti-Semitism'', Mr Kerry noted that ''just in the past couple of days, notices were sent to Jews in one city indicating that they have to identify themselves as Jews, and obviously the accompanying threat implied is, or suffer the consequences''.

''In the year 2014 … this is not just intolerable,'' he said, ''it is grotesque.''

Other elements in the document included agreement that the Organisation for Security Co-operation in Europe, whose monitors are already on the ground in Ukraine, should ''play a leading role in assisting Ukrainian authorities and local communities in the immediate implementation of these de-escalation measures ... beginning in the coming days''. It said the US, the European Union and Russia would each provide monitors.

Mr Kerry called the document ''a good day’s work'', but emphasised that ''words on paper'' were no substitute for action.

''On laying down of weapons,'' he said, the responsibility will lie with those who have organised the separatists, ''equipped them with weapons, put the uniforms on them and been engaged in the process of guiding them over the course of this operation. We’ve made it clear that Russia has a huge impact on all of those forces.''

At the start of the session the Ukrainian government outlined its plans to offer significant autonomy to its eastern regions. Mr Kerry said that according to the plan, most government functions except defence and foreign policy would be left to the regions.